How To Set Up Employee Award Programs

By Linda Neumann, Brilliant Marketing Ideas

(April 24, 2000) - Congratulations! You have finally realized that you need to take care of your most important assets, your employees. Employees want recognition, and motivating them will energize them, to satisfy your customers. Overall, employees begin to care more about your company and the success achieved. The key is to create an incentive campaign that will clearly identify what is expected from employees. You have taken the strongest step an employer can take toward their employees, to provide an effective strategy for positive change.
Objectives for the program are your first step. The objectives should complement your corporate strategy. Incentive programs can be planned to meet any objective, including an improvement in any of the following: quality, morale, productivity, loyalty, work habits, safety and teamwork. Once the foundation of an incentive program is in place, it will be easy to adjust the program to meet changing needs. A strong foundation will provide the opportunity for success with your new program, as well as future programs.
Details, details, details, will make the best incentive plan. The identification of the company's specific challenges or problems will assist in determining your goals. What do you want to achieve with this program? List as many as you can find. Then select your top three needs. Fully understand them as well as all the details that make up their nature. As an example, you have selected a problem of a decrease in number of repeat customers. Look into the reason it is not happening. Is it the products? The customer service? The difficulty in ordering? Any of these will change the focus of the objectives and goals of your program.
Easy-to-understand plans are the best. If you focus on too many objectives it could be confusing to your staff. Try to select the top objectives, and only if they relate to each other. The goals should be very specific and measurable. The program will track the progress, and it is difficult to track goals that are not measurable. An example would be changing "Increase sales for January" to "Increase sales from January 1 to January 31 by 15 additional new customers". You can measure 15 additional new customers. Systems should be in place to make sure that the numbers would be tracked properly.
Make sure the goals are attainable. If they are not, it becomes a disincentive for employees. Be honest about setting the goals and make sure they are realistic. Determine what changes employees would need to make to attain the goal, whether the goal has ever been met, if factors could effect the desired results, and if a reasonable number of participants in the program could meet the goal. Timing should be considered if your business has fluctuations as many do. There are peak periods for which the goals may need to be adjusted. Goals should be acceptable to top management and the people involved in direct supervision. You will soon find out if the objectives are unreasonable. Input on all levels will build excitement for the program, increase momentum and increase your knowledge.
Once you have your objectives, goals and measurement systems it is time to work on the overall program structure. You will need rules, quotas and awards. At this point it is time to ensure that all the elements work together smoothly. Once again the details become critically important. Who will be participating? What is it going to take to motivate them? Your motivating elements should be large enough to motivate, yet fit in with your predetermined budget. How long is this part of the program running? Make sure the program does not stop too quickly. Let it run through a sales cycle. Give each element time to work and track details to identify the components that work, discarding the ineffective ones.
Budgets will either have no limit to what the participants can earn, or there will be a fixed budget and the program will award based on a contest. Either the top 10 producers earn points for achievements and draw winner, pick from prizes that are various amounts, such as Scratch-off tickets. The options are endless and can be adjusted for secondary goals, additional pushes or focus during the program. Budgets should be determined by the goals and paid out of the profits or resulting cost savings. Expect to spend promotional and administrative money up front.
Building the budget takes number crunching and speculation of goals that will be achieved. Things to consider include number of participants, length of time for the program, motivation factors, money you will be willing to spend to reach the goals. There will also be additional expenses for the actual awards. However the awards will probably account for two thirds of the total budget. Keep in mind that the higher the income of the staff involved, the larger the awards should be. The rest of the budget will be used for the promotion and ongoing communication pieces, administration costs and any additional training that may need to take place. Alterations can take place to fit within the budget guidelines, however carefully determine the impact budget decisions will make.
Promotion and communication will be the most visual part of the entire program to your employees. It is important to have a solid concept that enables the program to flow easily. The development of the promotion and the communications is the most creative and fun part of the entire program. The theme is something that needs to be consistent with the company image, yet fun. All elements should be relevant to the theme. Typically clever or funny themes become the most fun and most supported. The logo creation and the theme will need to be used throughout the program. The theme should be used through every piece of communication, every award and all promotional pieces. Take the extra effort to work on a logo and theme, or hire a professional marketing person to assist.
Some of the elements of the promotional part of the program include the kick off, the announcement piece, periodic promotional pieces (i.e. puzzles, Q&A, training, products relevant to the theme with the promotion logo, banners, posters and talking about winners). Frequency will depend on the length of the program.
Reporting on an ongoing basis will be an important element. The administration can be handled in-house, however, approximately half of the time is spent in the administrative processes. The fundamental elements for the administration start with the enrollment of the participants and building a database with the information provided. The same database can be used to generate labels for communications packages. Awards will need to be tracked and performance statements or information should be available. Management reports should show the overall progress of the program. Tax reporting is also necessary to report the awards and produce earnings data. The final analysis of the program will be one of the last reports needed. Feedback from participants should be included.
When evaluation of the results are reports, you should answer the following questions: Were the objectives met? Did the program and awards meet the expectations and desires of the participants? Be honest and document everything about the program. Your future programs will be more successful by learning from the past.
Incentive programs are rewarding for employers and employees. It is an exciting step to building any business.
Examples of themes and uses:
Racing theme: Kick off had a booth with carpets designed with roads and cars printed on them, flags, gas cans, Street signs decorated the booth. Sales staff was in polo shirts with racing trim. The game played was racing with remote control racecars. Handouts included the logo on stopwatches. The winner received tickets to a racing event. The rules were handed out in a racing manual. Throughout the program incentives were send out with flyers. Car license plates, emergency car kits, tire stress balls, and road map kits were some of the numerous items used. Every communication sent including many racing terms to compliment the mailing piece. The grand prize for the winners was a trip to a racing school for the top 20 winners.
Jungle theme: Kick off had a booth with lush plants, banners and table covers in a natural canvass, sounds of the jungle, and a running water brook. Sales staff was dressed in fatigues. The game included animal trivia. The survival manual contained the rules. Handouts included a survival kit in a brown paper bag with items for jungle needs (Band-Aid, bazooka bubble gum, golf ball, and a business card of a number to call for survival of the program, which included the sales staff's phone number). The incentives used throughout the program included private labeled bottled water, canteens, fanny packs and flashlights. The grand prize included tickets to wild animal parks for the top 75 winners.
Travel theme: Kick off had a booth with various scenes from around the world. The games included guessing the exact miles between selected cities. Globes were hanging from the ceiling. Sales staff was dressed as airline employees. The Passport contained the rules. Handouts included travel toothbrushes. The incentives used throughout the program included travel toiletry bags, passport holders, travel lists of things to bring, maps and pre-threaded sewing kits. The grand prize included travel packages to a variety of locations they could pick from for the top 15 winners.
Detective theme: Kick off had a booth that was built to look like an old fashioned detective office. The games included quizzing the detective about the program and try to stump him. Rules were sent out earlier in a "confidential" envelope titled Clues, with coffee stains, Sales staff was dressed in overcoats and held Sherlock Holmes pipes and wore dark glasses. Handouts included magnifying glasses. Incentives used throughout the program included hand wipes, dark sunglasses, pocket watches and a tool disguised as a highlighter. The grand prize included a trip to Scotland Yard for the top 2 winners.